Review

Sometimes it can feel natural to overanalyze an album, a pitfall that can easily ruin a listening experience-- calculating all the x’s and y’s doesn’t necessarily lend itself to an immersive listening experience. So confrontational and wretched, this is not a blunder one makes with Meth Drinker. It’s impossible not to feel waves of despair in the vicious sludge that tumbles in on waves with each, acrimonious track. And make no mistake, this is not your Thou-esque, Southern sludge, which appears polished as a new car in comparison. Meth Drinker is much less calculated and more acerbic. These Kiwis have unleashed cathartic, gritty, and depressive music that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go until you’re puking along with the vocalist. Sound obnoxious? It is-- at times the extremity leaves no room for complaint, and at others it can feel a little overzealous or overbearing.

To illustrate this, Meth Drinker is so visceral it’s painful at points. Halfway through “Deprivation” the singer pukes out a chilling gasp of despair, and it’s an accurate testament of what you’re in for for the rest of the record. The melancholic, monolithic riffs are disturbed only by the sample of a crazed, cackling woman in a sample beginning “Combat Shock,” “Where are we going to live? What are we going to eat? Shut up! Shut up!” Otherwise, Meth Drinker’s brand of sludge, tinged with elements rotten bile, thoughts of dying alone, withdrawal from reality, and incomprehensibly dirty garages is consistently sordid and unrelenting. Be prepared, as the heavy atmosphere can become overbearing and downright oppressive, but isn’t that what we want from Meth Drinker, anyway